The new North-west. [volume] (Deer Lodge, Mont.) 1869-1897, 1887-05-06
NEW YORK RESTAURANTS.
Some Notes ON a Subject of General
Interest.
Especial Correspondencel


Interest.
Especial Correspondence
-.. NEW YORK, April q.
In my walks about this big city I have made
it a point to investigate the food question,
eating where could and looking ON at the
poorest places. The cost of sssquare meal"
ranges from S. down to three cents; but il
one adds wine or early fruits to his epicurean
dinner he may easily run the cost away above
$5.
absorption we may place Delmonico's and the
Hoffman house restaurants, with a few club
dining rooms: and at these one may dine for
So or luxuriate for $40. Next to these are per-
haps dozen places where one can live for
from So to Sc day; and then comes the great
middle class-the restaurants where clerks
and business men take their hurried midday
lunch and some 200, 600 people board. Of this
class the city contains some 1900, well dis
tributed in all sections except upon the finest
residence streets In those the steak, roast,
fish, meat pies, mutton chop or other standard
dish sells for fifteen cents, bread and potatoes
free with each meat order. All sorts of soup
ten cents; coffee, tea, chocolate Or. milk five
cents cup. But "dishes to order" are twen-
higher on luxuries. One may live first rate
at any of these at S. per week.
Next are those of which "Jim Fisk" on the
Bowery is type, where dishes are ten cents
each. The food is good and the place clean.
the cheapness is in the lower rent and the
absence of style. A little further east or
south are nine cent and eight cent places; the
food is still tolerably good, but there are no
napkins, no pictures on the walls, no elegant
queens ware, and general free and easiness
which is only attractive for while.
Going next to that tangled wilderness of
narrow streets and alleys stretching north
and east from the old Five Points we find
great drop-to the five cent and six cent
places. In region not more than three
quarters of a mile square live about 100000
people Saloons and restaurants are below
the level of the sidewalk, and entered by a
short fight of steps: the carpet is sawdust,
the plates often of metal and one eats at !
counter OF stands and holds his
plate. One will see there foreigners
of nearly all races, from Greek to
Chinaman, and dishes retail at from three
to six cents. The bread is dark and coarse,
the coffee of the cheapest, and in few places
your metal plates are chained fast to the
counter. Otherwise a late hour guest might
spoil it by hitting some one on the head with
it. Yet they give pretty good measure Of
pork and BEANS stewed potatoes, meat pies
and the like; and if one could forget that much
of the food is the s'leavings" of good hotelsa
hungry man could dine there with relish.
There are few, very few, where the dishes
are still cheaper-little measures of food
at two cents each-and finally benevo-
lent society has even established street
stands in several parts Of the city where
plain food goes at one cent a dish--actual
cost. And still many thousands live at home
even more cheaply. Away up in the garrets
of tenement houses, forlorn old women and
broken down men manage to maintain life
and strength at total cost for food of fifty
cents week They buy the article cheapest
at the season and stew it over the same fire
that warns them, or dozen or more COM
bine on a little oil stove, and SO they live
that is, If that may be called living, which is
only weary and incessant struggle to escape
the grasp of DEATH ]. B. PARKE.